Welcome and Host Introductions

John Dehlin [00:01:15] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am one of your two hosts today, John Dehlin. And I am joined by the amazing Carah Burrell. Hi, guys.

Carah Burrell [00:01:27] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:01:27] Hey, Carah, what's going on?

Carah Burrell [00:01:28] Hey, John. John just asked me at 7 o' clock this morning if we wanted to do a kind of like improv live talk about the news, talk about what's going on. So the Boy Scouts of America and the LDS Church are in the news. So this is a really, really important topic to talk about. Systemic abuse and the implications of the LDS Church and the Boy Scouts of America interweave together. So, John, what else do you want to talk about?

John Dehlin [00:01:52] Yeah, you know, today is September 16, 2021 and you know, we're care. It's been so amazing to have your support on Mormon Stories to be able to bring Carah on and to be able to try new programming options. A couple weeks ago, Carah and I did a response video to the wonderful Jacob Hess. And from there we got a lot of good feedback saying, hey, let's do more of this type of content. So one of the series that we want to start bringing to you on Mormon Stories podcast, in addition to long form faith crisis interviews, in addition to the gift of the Mormon faith crisis content that we're now putting out, in addition to the amazing John Larsen content that we have that you guys are supporting, we want to cover current events.

Carah Burrell [00:02:41] Are your head spinning already by like so much, way too much content at you through your screen?

John Dehlin [00:02:46] Yeah. If you guys want less content, put that in the comments right now and we'll work on that. But, but we, the feedback we have is that you guys like this kind of stuff. So what we hope to do is every week or two, whenever there's a big news item come out, we want to cover it. We may cover it in this kind of, you know, two, two on all of you kind of format. We also maybe want to start bringing in special guests into our studio and do a live panel with people like Samantha and Tanner or John Larsen or Natasha or other Margi or other cool people as well.

Carah Burrell [00:03:21] Mark Oslin. Yeah, Rachel, so roping them all in here.

John Dehlin [00:03:25] So look for really cool innovations. But today it's, it's, it's me and Carah. I think, I think we do a good job.

Carah Burrell [00:03:31] We'll find out soon enough. You'll let us know?

John Dehlin [00:03:35] Yeah. So today we are covering kind of this breaking news about the Mormon Church admitting that it has a major role in systemic sexual abuse of Boy Scouts. For decades and decades, they've committed to $250 million in a settlement. We're going to get into that today. But before we do, I have a really cool announcement. Are you ready for an announcement?

Thrive Day 2021 Announcement and Details

Carah Burrell [00:04:02] Yeah. I didn't know you had an announcement.

John Dehlin [00:04:03] I do. I have an announcement. So I am announcing right now in Mormon Stories that Thrive Thrive Day 2021 is happening.

Carah Burrell [00:04:14] I mean, I knew that part, but okay.

John Dehlin [00:04:16] Yeah, So, I mean, sure.

Carah Burrell [00:04:17] In November.

John Dehlin [00:04:18] Yeah. So November 14th this year, just like we did a couple years ago where we had Amber Scora and Wayne Sermon and a bunch of amazing people at the Salt palace, we are announcing Today Thrive Day 2021 at the Salt palace on November 14 is happening. And we have some amazing speakers lined up. And I'm just going to show you a bit about who those speakers are, so.

Carah Burrell [00:04:45] Because I don't know who the speakers are. This is exciting.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] Yeah. So the first speaker that we're. That we're announcing is Sarah Edmondson. So if any of you are familiar with the Vow on hbo, which is a documentary about Nexium and the Cult, the Nexium, or if you haven't seen the Vow or other podcast episodes about Nexium, you may have heard about this new podcast that's out called A Little Bit Culty with Sarah Edmondson and her husband Nippy. But today, this very morning, I. I was able to talk to Sarah on the phone. Sarah Edmondson. And Sarah and Nippy confirmed that they're going to come to Salt Lake City and. And speak@Thrive 2021. How cool is that?

Carah Burrell [00:05:39] That is so cool.

John Dehlin [00:05:39] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:05:40] So front row and center. I will be.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] So we are super excited to have Sarah and Nippy come. And then also I was able to confirmed today, Lance Allred. Have you ever heard of Lance Allred?

Carah Burrell [00:05:52] I've only watched his entire Mormon Stories interview and edit it for Tick Tock.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] All right. Yeah. So for those of you. Yeah. For those of you who don't know, Lance Allred is a former NBA star, or at least NBA player. He played with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers. He played professional basketball for well over 10 years. Those of you who follow Mormon stories will have listened to my episode with him. He. He has a book called something like the New Alpha where he talks about

Carah Burrell [00:06:20] alpha male finding masculinity.

John Dehlin [00:06:23] Yeah, yeah. And he's legally deaf. He's the first legally deaf NBA player

Carah Burrell [00:06:30] from a polygamous Mormon family.

John Dehlin [00:06:31] Yes. All that.

Carah Burrell [00:06:32] What a. What a Wikipedia article that guy could write about.

John Dehlin [00:06:36] Absolutely.

Carah Burrell [00:06:37] When you think you've heard it all, you got at Everything.

John Dehlin [00:06:39] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:06:40] From the already fascinating character.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] So Lance has agreed to speak at Thrive, Thrive Day 2021. He also is. Is the. The speaker who gave us the amazing TED talk with over 4.6 million views at this point called what is your polygamy? So here's what you do. We want. We want.

John Dehlin [00:07:01] We don't just want to fly these amazing guests into Salt Lake City and then have no one show up. And most importantly, we. We want to have an amazing day where thousands of you can come to Salt Lake City, make new friends, forge community and just have this amazing get together. We had 1700 people attend Thrive Day two years ago, and we want to have at least 2000 people at this Thrive day. So if you want to join us, what you need to do is go to thrivebeyondreligion.com right now, click on events and under the event calendar you will see.

John Dehlin [00:07:42] You will see the event for November 14th and you can just click on that Thrive Day 2021 event for November and register. And tickets are only $25. I do want to always kind of make sure people understand that this is a non profit event.

John Dehlin [00:08:02] We have underwriters that are putting forth literally tens of thousands of dollars to reserve the Salt Palace. No one's making any money. We are paying our speakers out of respect for their profession. Oh, and by the way, Carah, I have an announcement for you. We want to have a TikTok comedy hour and we are asking you to lead up a TikTok comedy hour where you plan sort of like you pick the coolest, most popular tiktokers who are willing to come and you guys plan like an hour of fun for the audience.

Carah Burrell [00:08:37] I was checking the sound. I. Thank you for the offer. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] Will you. Will you lead that up?

Carah Burrell [00:08:42] Yes. Yes. I just read the text from Clint like two minutes ago, and I didn't have time to respond. So the answer is yes.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] All right, so we'll even have NuanceHoe there and your favorite tiktokers. We also want to, you know, like last time we had booths where people like Jeremy Runnels and Christian Moore, you know, anyone, anyone that is anyone, we want to invite them to Thrive, have a booth, you know, sell their books or. Or just meet and greet. So we want, you know, we're going to try and get XML X down all the famous YouTubers and tick tockers. We're gonna find a way for you to meet your favorite YouTubers or tick Tockers or podcasters. I'm gonna invite Bill Real rfm See if they'll come down. I don't know if they will. Haven't asked him yet. But we want Thrive Day every year to be the place to meet your favorite authors, podcasters, tick tockers, youtubers, et cetera. Have I sold you? Yeah. Will you be there?

Carah Burrell [00:09:37] Yeah, I mean, I have to get. You need to get through this news thing because now I have to get to work because I just barely found out about this task that I will be in charge of collecting these tiktokers to come. So hopefully it's like a one call, that's all type situation.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] Yeah. Yeah. So, so please register now. We're excited to have you. We're, we're excited to have Sarah and Nippy and Lance and other speakers to come. There are a few more really amazing speakers we've invited and we're just waiting for confirmation on that. But Natasha Helfer will be there. I'll be there. You'll be there. It's going to be a blast.

Carah Burrell [00:10:09] It's a party.

John Dehlin [00:10:10] All right. So thanks. Please spread the word. And now for the main story. So there are lots of different ways to introduce this topic, but I first read about this from Breaking News on by the Associated Press. And so for those of you who haven't heard yet, the, the announcement that came out of the Associated Press by Randall Chase yesterday is that Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts settlements reached with major insurer and Mormons.

History of the Mormon Church and Boy Scouts

John Dehlin [00:10:46] And there's so much to get to. But I think what might be interesting is to kind of just give our listeners kind of an overview and kind of a background because there's a lot to this. So let's dive in. I did a brief kind of review on when the relationship between the Mormon Church and the Boy Scouts started. And there's actually a timeline that you can find on none other than the Deseret News's website, which is nice of them. Yeah, yeah. It's a timeline. It was published in 2018 and it's a timeline, a look at the relationship between the LDS Church and Scouting. And what we found is that the relationship between the Mormon Church and the Boy scouts started in 18, as early as 1875.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] And over time, that relationship grew through. You would see Mormon prophets, you know, often in their Boy Scout uniforms. The, at some point the Boy Scouts of America program was folded into the young Men's program. In some ways, it almost became the young men's program. Of course, women, for some reason, we didn't incorporate the Girl Scouts into any idea.

Carah Burrell [00:11:55] I was one of those girls growing up. That was really resentful that we didn't get to do all the cool stuff that the Boy Scouts did. If you were like a tomboy like me. And as we will get into, I am actually kind of grateful in retrospect. Fact, vision, hindsight is 20 20. Maybe I am not so regretful.

John Dehlin [00:12:12] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:12:12] I didn't get a chance to be in the Boy Scouts, but I wish I did. Could have done cool merit badge things and outdoor camping and there's a lot of, you know, fun adventure stuff that as a young woman, you miss out on.

John Dehlin [00:12:24] Yeah. And I get the sense that when the Mormon church kind of partnered with the Boy Scouts, it's sort of during these, you know, kind of this 20th century era where we're leaving polygamy behind. We are trying to become like, as American as apple pie. And what's more American than Boy Scouts. But also traditional gender roles. You know, we support. Like you said, men should be camping and hiking and fishing and mountain climbing and. And preparing for war, because Mormons have always been.

Carah Burrell [00:12:57] Would this be a good time to introduce that? When I was in achievement days, when I was 11 years old and we made the. Have you ever made those mush. They're called marshmallow guns. Out of PVC pipes and everyone was coloring theirs with daisies and cute paint. I covered my hands in red paint and put bloody hand marks all over my gun. So that's a good introduction into, like, how my brain worked as a child. Like, I really wanted to be doing Boy Scout, like, war things, even as a 10 year old girl in achievement days. So I was not into the gender roles then and my husband's home taking care of our son now. So still a theme of my life.

John Dehlin [00:13:32] Yeah. So. So while I was going to Boy Scout camp, doing merit badges on like canoeing and hiking and fishing and camping and astrology and astronomy, Mormon girls were doing what?

Carah Burrell [00:13:43] We were making marshmallow guns and learning to sew and making like, recipe kits and writing letters to our future husbands. I'm sad. I can think of 20 more examples.

John Dehlin [00:13:53] Quilting, right?

Carah Burrell [00:13:54] Quilting. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:55] Um, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:13:56] And it just reflects on wedding dresses and just anything that's like, you're made to be a wife one day. Let's see what we can do. Starting at 8 years old, then set up the activities thusly.

John Dehlin [00:14:08] Yeah. And it just really fit well with traditional, patriarchal, rigid Mormon gender roles. And that was the Mormons in the 20th century. And there. There was no stopping it. And if you actually go. I think this is interesting. And worth showing. If you actually go to, like, if you Google, like, Thomas S. Monson and Boy Scouts, you'll see, like this whole highlights of the relationship between Thomas S. Monson and Scouting. And he receives the Silver Beaver award, like in 1971, and it shows him with pictures of him as a Boy Scout.

John Dehlin [00:14:45] And, you know, all through the years he's, he's receiving all these awards and attending national jamborees. And you know what, what also probably isn't understood is that behind the scenes, the Mormon church becomes like 20% of the national membership of not just the Boy Scouts of America, but of its leadership. Yeah, I think that's important. It's not just what happened to Mormon boys in terms of scouting. I think a big part of the story we're going to talk about is that we become sort of like the main backbone behind the Boy Scouts of America, for sure. And so we're not just talking about Mormon Boy Scouts who get abused.

John Dehlin [00:15:26] We're talking about Mormons being the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America, or at least the main, some of the main leaders, for sure.

Carah Burrell [00:15:34] Yeah. That those things are incredibly intertwined.

John Dehlin [00:15:37] Yeah. So which, which goes to why we would. The Mormon Church would pay such a big settlement. So anyway, you know, Mormon prophet seers and revelators for literally over a century, we're really promoting the Boy Scouts in, in, in corporating it into the young men's program. There's, there's Thomas S. Monson receiving the Scouts Canada's Silver Fox Award. And if you just Google, like Thomas S. Monson and Boy Scouts, you're going to see a million photos. I'm a little bit surprised the Mormon Church hasn't scrubbed all photos of Thomas S. Monson's association with the Boy Scouts.

Carah Burrell [00:16:12] Oh, you think they would?

John Dehlin [00:16:14] I mean, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe they might. Maybe they might a little bit. What do you think?

Carah Burrell [00:16:19] Oh, I think that they have higher priorities. But do you think that that's something they would do, I don't know, let it be known?

John Dehlin [00:16:25] It's possible. So, so that's kind of the history. And. But then what you see happening in the 2000s is the Mormon Church starting to express some concern about its relationship with the Boy Scouts of America. And so that, you know. Do you remember any of those rumblings

Carah Burrell [00:16:44] that was that 2018?

John Dehlin [00:16:46] Well, I mean, that's where it starts to culminate. But even before then, do you ever remember.

Carah Burrell [00:16:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:51] Like the, the relationship with, with the Mormon Church and Boy Scouts ever being kind of like starting to be called into question.

Carah Burrell [00:16:57] Yeah. And for clarification, I was never. And I know I look like a den mother right now, since I did my hair like this today. Sorry, I'm not about to go with a bunch of like 10 year old boys hiking in the Uintas right now. That's. I'm actually recording a podcast, so don't let these braids fool you. But my only history with the Boy Scouts is when I did PR for the LDS Church and was one of my responsibilities to call every single troop in LA and invite them to our jamboree. So I'm implicit in all of this. Oh no, what have I done? But anyway, what was your question again?

John Dehlin [00:17:27] Yeah. So do you remember when the rumbling.

Carah Burrell [00:17:30] Yeah. So then I remember right around. I feel like it was 2018. That's what I'm going to call it. This is not a very good news show. But it's going to get better. It's going to get better when I stop talking now. Now. But I do remember that a lot of it had to do with girls trying to join the Boy Scouts or like trans boys, trans girls and the lines around gender being a little more fuzzy and the Boy Scouts and the LDS Church kind of needing to break off their relationship and not really being super clear why. Yeah, but I think it had to do with gender issues is how I remember it.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] Yeah. So like you'd, you'd hear about, can a Boy Scout be gay? You know, but does that violate the Boy Scout model? Oh, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:18:08] Because you could not be an out,

John Dehlin [00:18:11] could you be they. You heard rumsing about that.

Carah Burrell [00:18:13] Yeah, Rumblings about that. That is incredible that you couldn't be an act of like an out, like gay man and be a Boy Scout leader.

John Dehlin [00:18:22] Well, it was those two things. So some of the rumblings have been that I've heard over the years are, can you be an openly gay Boy Scout? Can you be an openly gay Boy Scout leader? And then there were the trans issues that you would hear rumblings about. Can you be a transgender Boy Scout? And then you'd also hear like, can a girl join the Boy Scouts? And of course, they always let. Let Mormon moms be den leaders of Cub Scouts.

Carah Burrell [00:18:47] Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] But never of Boy Scouts. So it's okay for the women to do the Cub Scout stuff, but not the. Not the Boy Scout stuff. Anyway, you would, you know, I would say in the 10 or 20 years leading up to the dissolution of the relationship between the Mormon Church and the Boy Scouts, you would hear these types of rumblings and you Would sort of wonder, wow, is the Mormon Church going to be severing its relationship with the Boy Scouts? Is that even something that could be possible?

Carah Burrell [00:19:13] Yeah, it seemed like they were too intertwined.

John Dehlin [00:19:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:19:17] Like hundreds of millions of dollars supporting the like already established program of the Boy Scouts that the church would then have to scramble and replace pretty quickly.

John Dehlin [00:19:26] Yeah. And this, and this is something we'll get to at the end. But like, if you think about the fact that literally the Mormon Church incorporated Boy Scouts into its young men's program formally, you know, this is where prophets are involved. It's these people that we look to as Mormons, as prophets, seers and revelators that talk directly to God and Jesus and they know the future because why would, why else would we want a prophet or need a prophet if they can't see the future?

Carah Burrell [00:19:50] So I didn't really have a grandpa going up, growing up.

John Dehlin [00:19:54] So you didn't.

Carah Burrell [00:19:56] I didn't really have an old man to look up to. So I can think of other reasons, but go on.

John Dehlin [00:19:59] Yeah. So. So, you know, I can just say this, that when Thomas S. Monson was prophet, it felt like the relationship between the Boy Scouts and the Mormon Church was never stronger. And if you had asked me, is there any chance the Mormon Church would ever sever its relationship with the Boy Scouts, I would say no chance. In outer darkness. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:20:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] Do you agree?

Carah Burrell [00:20:21] Okay, okay. Too, Too much intertwined.

John Dehlin [00:20:24] Too intertwined. So that takes us to 2000 and that takes us to, let's just say 2018, which is the date you kind of already mentioned.

The End of the Church's Scout Partnership

Carah Burrell [00:20:35] May 19th.

John Dehlin [00:20:37] Yeah. So we've got the New York Times article with Lori Goodstein, who's been a friend of mine over the years, she's a New York Times reporter, and Christine Hauser. And, and the article is, Mormon Church ends century old partnership with Boy Scouts of America. So it's over a century and all of a sudden this bomb drops May of 2018 that the relationship is ending. And you know, that was. Do you remember that announcement?

Carah Burrell [00:21:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:04] Do you remember what you thought? You know, did you have any impressions?

Carah Burrell [00:21:06] Yeah, I just remember at that time thinking, how the heck is the church going to create its own program quickly enough to replace like the, not just like the history, but like just the robust nature of the program that the Boy Scouts were. That it was, it was quite the outsourced program that the church doesn't often do that they would then have to produce themselves. It's such a strong arm of the church, like an appendage of the church that is hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding goes to like, what are they going to do now? They're going to have to scrap something together.

John Dehlin [00:21:39] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I, I remember just wanting to know what justifications were given and I think that's one of the topics we're going to hit later is kind of just how honest and open is the Mormon Church. Because if you go back and read this New York Times article, which we, we will link to in the show notes, you'll have some of the quotes from the church PR people and Eric Hawkins, who is kind of one of the church's main PR guys, he writes in this New York Times article, in terms of the reasons given for the discontinuation. It says in the New York Times article, Eric Hawkins, director of media relations for the church, said that the change under discussion for more than a decade will allow the church to institute a youth program that is rooted in church teaching and translatable across countries and cultures.

John Dehlin [00:22:27] It will also reduce the disparities that have existed in the program for boys and girls, though it will continue to keep them separate. He said the intent is that the resources, time commitment, opportunities, activities and budgets will be the same for boys and girls.

Carah Burrell [00:22:44] If the director of media relations for the church is saying that let's pack it up, what he says is God's word, let's be done. There's nothing else to say. Eric Hawkins said it. That's the reason.

John Dehlin [00:22:54] So, Carol, what, What if you had to interpret what the flowery reasoning and, you know, beneficent, magnanimous justifications for the discontinuation of the Boy Scouts? What should we learn from what Eric Hawkins wanted us to believe at the time?

Carah Burrell [00:23:11] Well, he had. The point that I actually do agree with though, is about it does feel a little bit too American, like apple pie. It does not cross over countries and cultures. So I can see that. But I know that there is definitely some, some bodies in the basement.

John Dehlin [00:23:28] So if you were so. No, no, no. But if you were like Eric Hawkins's PR rep and you were to summarize, for Gen zers that don't like PR talk, what I just read to you and you were to say, hey, Gen Z Mormons, this is awesome that the church is ending its relationship with the Boy Scouts, here's why, what would you say?

Carah Burrell [00:23:48] I would say, hey, you know what? Now that we think about it, Boy Scouts, that's a little bit too gender. That's a little bit too traditional. What we're actually going to do is our own thing. Because, hey, we' by God, we don't need to outsource this program to the Boy Scouts anymore. We're going to do our own thing and it's going to be so fair. We're going to have equal funding. Everyone's going to love it.

John Dehlin [00:24:07] Between.

Carah Burrell [00:24:08] Oh, sorry. Between boys and girls and across. Of course, we have a global church, so we're going to have more of a global program. So we are on the up and up. It worked for a while, but we

John Dehlin [00:24:22] need to update continuing revelation.

Carah Burrell [00:24:24] Right, Right on.

John Dehlin [00:24:25] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:24:26] So we thank the O God for a prophet.

John Dehlin [00:24:29] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So. So Eric Hawkins wants us to believe in 2018 that the reason why the Mormon Church is discontinuing its relationship with the Boy Scouts is because they love girls. They want gender equality between boys and girls, though. Separate but equal. Right. Because he. Because he does say it will still be. It will still remain separate. Right. So that we love girls now. They're the same as boys.

Carah Burrell [00:24:53] You know what's funny about that is where they're like activities and budgets. You know what's not really expensive is like marshmallow guns and like trying on dresses from Di. You know what is expensive going on? Like weekend camp outs and like.

John Dehlin [00:25:06] Yeah. No high adventure. No canoeing trips and. And mountain climbing events. Like, that's what we used to get to do. Right.

Carah Burrell [00:25:13] Yeah. So they're gonna like, really break the bank when they take us to Di to pick out wedding dresses. Like, thanks so much. Just like that. That's what always kind of hurt was the budgets felt very disproportional.

John Dehlin [00:25:24] Right. So he's basically trying to address kind of some of the concerns that came out of the ordained women movement with people like Nyland McBain and other. Why is there budget disparity? But, but, but my point is the justification that they wanted Mormons in the world to believe is we love girls, we want fairness, we want boys and girls to be separate but equal now in terms of budget and activities and, and we love our international members. And so we really need. Since, oh, oh, bummer, Boy Scouts is just in the United States now, we need to start thinking about all our global membership. And so we need to discontinue our relationship with the Boy Scouts because we now love all our members across the world. Is that. Are we summarizing Eric Hawkins justification adequately?

Carah Burrell [00:26:09] Yeah, we got it.

John Dehlin [00:26:09] Okay.

Carah Burrell [00:26:10] Hire us.

John Dehlin [00:26:11] Well, now. Yes, hire us, Eric Hawkins. I actually think he should, but that's another podcast. So now it's in 2021 right now we're a few years later. And is it fair to say that now we're learning the real reason why we discontinued the Mormon Church discontinued its relationship with the Boy Scouts of America?

Scale of Abuse Claims and Victims

Carah Burrell [00:26:28] I think so.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] I think so. And so now if you actually read the article, you know, whether it's the Washington Post, you know, Boy Scouts reach agreement with Mormon Church and its insurers in sex abuse case. Oh, that's what I don't. Did wait, we just read Eric Hawkins's justifications. Did he happen to mention the sexual abuse, the massive sexual abuse pending lawsuit? Did he mention that?

Carah Burrell [00:26:56] Yeah, we need a little bit of space in between 2018 and 2021 when this other shoe is going to drop?

John Dehlin [00:27:03] I guess he kind of didn't mention that. And if we go to the Associated Press, you know, Boy Scout settlements reach with major insurers and Mormons, even, even the Deseret News kind of surprised me and has a pretty decent article. And the Desert News article says Church of Jesus Christ, the new name will pay 250 million into fund for Boy Scout sexual abuse claims. And I guess that's kind of what I wanted to hit up at the top is I'm going to venture to say that these settlements have been in the works for years.

John Dehlin [00:27:40] These mounting sexual abuse claims by Mormon Boy Scout males and you know, past and current have been mounting up over the past several decades. They've gotten lawyered up and the lawsuits and the Class Askren lawsuits have gotten so substantive and so significant that the church realized a few years ago this was on the horizon and they needed to sever ties ahead of time before the settlements would actually come out.

Carah Burrell [00:28:10] Yeah. What a conspiracy.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] Am I cynical? Am I a little cynical?

Carah Burrell [00:28:14] Yeah, I think as we're going to get into, organizations like this are just like rife, setting people up for failure without having a proper place to be able to vet people well. And that's kind of what the church is already known for. So you do it at the scale that the Boy Scouts acts at, it's going to be a massive crisis. It's going to have a ton, a ton of victims on the other end of it.

John Dehlin [00:28:41] Yeah. So let's just go ahead and regardless of which of these three articles you read and we'll put links to all of them in the show notes. The summary is kind of stunning. All the different media outlets are agreeing that number one, that the LDS Church made up 20% of the 2.3 million members of the Boy Scouts. Do you, do you know what percent of the United States is actually Mormon.

Carah Burrell [00:29:06] Oh, I don't.

John Dehlin [00:29:07] I mean, it's less than 1%.

Carah Burrell [00:29:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:09] So we're looking at less than 1% of, you know, US citizenry. Over 20% of. Of the. I would say, leadership and participants in the Boy Scouts were Mormon. That's a big.

Carah Burrell [00:29:23] We have so many temples.

John Dehlin [00:29:27] What was your point there?

Carah Burrell [00:29:28] Like, it's less than 1%, but we keep building so many temples. We have so many temples, obviously. Obviously we're probably 20%. I don't need to look in the actual statistics. I'll go by the temple size and scale of building.

John Dehlin [00:29:40] So 2.3 million Boy Scouts at its peak, 20% of them were Mormon. A second data point that we read from these articles is this is the fifth, at least the fifth settlement. So we're talking like we're already filling up one hand for the number of class action lawsuit settlements that have been in the works or are in the works right now. But this. One of the stunning numbers that I found is that these media outlets are reporting over 80,000 victims at least.

Carah Burrell [00:30:10] Outrageous.

John Dehlin [00:30:11] That's just the people that report. We know that in General, less than 1% of victims ever report their abuse. So it has to be well over 100,000 victims. And if 20% of those are Mormon, we're talking about at least 20,000 Mormon boys and young men that were sexually abused by Mormon leaders over the past several decades. Yeah, thoughts on that.

Carah Burrell [00:30:36] That's just heartbreaking. And as we'll get into talking about that, this is not just a few bad apples. A hundred thousand is not a few bad apples. When that many children have been harmed. And this is definitely a systemic issue

John Dehlin [00:30:50] now, if over 20,000. If over 20,000 Mormon boys and youth have been sexually abused, to me, this reaches the scale of Spotlight. So did you ever see the movie Spotlight?

Carah Burrell [00:31:02] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:02] Catholic Church. It's one of the best movies. We should include this in the. In the show notes. One of the best movies you'll ever see is the movie Spotlight. That shows something like 7 or 8% of the Catholic priests worldwide were shown to be sexually abusing young kids. And they were just reassigning the priest. Whenever the priest would get caught, they would cover it up, pressure the victims to stay quiet, keep it out of the news, buy off victims, and then pressure the. Just reassign the priests. Oh, a priest sexually abuses a kid in Uruguay. Send them to Panama. You know, a sec. A Catholic priest sexually abuses a kid in Boston. Send him to Chicago.

Carah Burrell [00:31:42] And there is a similar thing. I'M sure you've seen the files of the Boy Scouts where they have. Do you know what it's called? That file of. It's like the, the predator file. Do you know what I'm talking about? There's a file of Boy Scouts and they'll, the church has known that the Boy Scouts will fire somebody from working for them and the church will still review their case, know why they were fired. There was a CNN entire piece about this. I was just watching. And the, this man who was sexually abusing kids for years was known to be fired for abusing children. And the church still hired him.

Carah Burrell [00:32:12] He was still an active LDS member and then still participating in a different Boy Scouts troop. So they can have access to information the same way the Catholic Church does. Know what this person inclinations are to abuse children and then still put them in places where they can harm children and do in fact harm children.

John Dehlin [00:32:27] Absolutely.

Carah Burrell [00:32:28] This is a systemic issue at that point.

John Dehlin [00:32:31] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:32:31] It's that the church knows something and covers it up.

John Dehlin [00:32:33] Absolutely.

Carah Burrell [00:32:34] Whether it's Catholic or Mormon. So it's.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:32:37] Infuriating really.

John Dehlin [00:32:37] So, so I've had friends already reach out to me about the story who are willing to come on the podcast. And by the way, I think I want to do a Mormon Stories episode where vi victims where victims kind of can just share their brief story of, of abuse with the Boy Scouts. And so we'll just put a call for that. Now, if you are Mormon or have been Mormon, if you were sexually abused as a Boy Scout or as a Cub Scout, we want to hear your story. And we'll, we'll have, we'll have you record a short audio or video snippet of your story and we'll just sew those all together and have that be a Mormon Stories episode.

John Dehlin [00:33:13] But Andrew Whiscomb already is commenting on Facebook. He says, I personally know five people who were abused as Boy Scouts. And, and yeah, maybe, maybe. You know, please, please share your comments now. And, and Carah can monitor them as I'm talking and we can kind of showcase those a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:33:33] But, but yeah, so over 80,000 victims, probably over 100,000 victims if you count the ones that haven't reported, supported. And, and the point that I think we were trying to make is that the Mormon Church would want, the church always wants to keep these abuse cases secret and private because they don't want to cause scandal in the war, they don't want to cause scandal in the stake, and they don't want to be legally held liable.

Carah Burrell [00:33:59] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:59] And so you, you, you know, how many of you have ever heard the church announce in your ward or your stake or in general conference that sexual abuse happened in a Boy Scout troop? Have you ever heard that?

Carah Burrell [00:34:14] No, but somebody else's, though. It's like a friend of a friend of a friend, maybe.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] But yeah, you hear it through the whisper.

Carah Burrell [00:34:19] But.

John Dehlin [00:34:20] But the church has never. The church never historically has wanted to come clean about this, and so that's why it's kept quiet. The victims are hushed up. The perpetrators are just like, slapped on the wrist, oftentimes reassigned. Oftentimes they just moved other wards and stakes within the church, and then they become repeat offenders. And so that's why I'm comparing this to the. To the Catholic Spotlight scandal.

Carah Burrell [00:34:45] It's apropos.

John Dehlin [00:34:46] Yeah. And we'll see the numbers in just a second. So. So that first number, 20% of all scouts, that's a big deal. Over 100,000 victims is a number that I'm very comfortable saying. And, you know, the other thing that's reported is the Boy Scouts of America are in bankruptcy, so they're officially filing chapter 11. And all of these settlements with insurance companies and class action lawsuits are because the Boy Scouts are currently in bankruptcy. And because we know Mormons were made up a large percentage of the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America. That's on us a little bit. Yeah. Is that fair to say?

Carah Burrell [00:35:21] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:21] Like, it's not just the Boy Scouts of America. It's Mormon leaders and Mormon general authorities that have been leading. Co. Leading the Boy Scouts of America with other leaders and. And churches for. For decades.

Carah Burrell [00:35:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The $250 Million Settlement Breakdown

John Dehlin [00:35:39] So let's get to the numbers. So in terms of the actual financial settlement, what did you read, Carah? In terms of the numbers?

Carah Burrell [00:35:46] So the Mormon Church agreed to a 250 million dollar settlement.

John Dehlin [00:35:51] Billion. Oh, million. No, you're right. I'm sorry.

Carah Burrell [00:35:54] Using how much money they have. It's just how much they give away, John.

John Dehlin [00:35:57] Sorry. 250 million.

Carah Burrell [00:35:58] Right. And then there are the insurers, the Hartford group.

John Dehlin [00:36:03] That's one of the insurance.

Carah Burrell [00:36:04] One of the insurance. The Hartford Group of 787 million. And then another insurer century in. How do you pronounce that?

John Dehlin [00:36:13] Indemnity.

Carah Burrell [00:36:14] Indemnity. I don't know what that word means. I'll look it up later anyway. Which are still in negotiations. But all in all, how much money are we talking about?

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Over a billion dollars. Which. Which seems like a nice round number. And it also seems like a lot. Right. I mean, at first glance, anyway, at

Carah Burrell [00:36:29] first glance, I think it seems like a lot, but in comparison to how much. How many people are actually being able to get a settlement from that. 100 billion.

John Dehlin [00:36:38] Yeah, that's. That's kind of the. That's kind of the rub.

Carah Burrell [00:36:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:42] Yeah. So. So just stick with that for a second. How many of you paid tithing to the Mormon Church over the years? The church talks about the widow's mite. The church talks about sacred tithing funds. The Mormon church just took $250 million worth of tithing from its global membership. Not to feed the poor, not to provide water to Africans that don't have clean water, not to provide homeless shelters. Right. The Mormon church is announcing $250 million of your tithing. Of our tithing. Did you pay tithing?

Carah Burrell [00:37:18] Oh, yeah. Tithing when I could not afford it, let me tell you.

John Dehlin [00:37:21] Yeah. That money is going not to charitable endeavors, but a quarter of a billion dollars is going to pay victims of sexual abuse when the church was leading those scout troops and leading the Boy Scouts of America.

Carah Burrell [00:37:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:37] How do you feel about that?

Carah Burrell [00:37:39] Yeah, that's really painful, especially when I always like to say this. Sorry if you hear me say this a lot, but I believe by the most part that the. The church members are good people and they put their faith in their leader's hands and they're in a system where either they're brought up in it, or that's just where they've converted and they find some spiritual strength and solace and peace from the teachings of the Mormon Church. Like a lot of churches teach that. But unfortunately, there's a system that has been put in place where the system cares more about protecting the good name of the system than this people that are actually served within it.

Carah Burrell [00:38:13] And so unless people who are served within that system, who are finding their. Their peace and their solace there, speak out and say that I paid tithing to this into the system, and I would like to see it actually go to these things and not to be further hiding sexual abuse cases and just going to things that keep the good name of the church alive, but not actually serve the members and serve the children when you know that you were putting your hands kind of in whoever the bishop appoints, sometimes in these different word callings in different places that we've all grown up in the church to hopefully trust that they're going to do the right thing.

Carah Burrell [00:38:50] And time after time, the church doesn't. And it just. It pains me that there are so many people who they. They love the church and they want to see what's best. Their children grow up and have good morals and values and, and teach them the gospel as they see it. But they're in a system that doesn't care as much about their children as they do. Or does that make sense for certainly

John Dehlin [00:39:12] as they think as much as they think. So many Mormon parents just, you know, just send your kids to the church and they're going to be taken care of. Send your kids on campouts because Mormon priesthood leaders would never abuse your children and the Mormon Church is going to make sure and protect your children. This is a. We're getting some wonderful comments coming in. I'm going to put the mouse here so that we can both browse comments as needed.

Carah Burrell [00:39:34] Oh, you're doing with your left hand.

John Dehlin [00:39:35] Yeah, I'm being ambidextrous, but James Boley writes, as a scout leader, I always obeyed the two leadership deep principle. That rule immediately stopped when it became a priesthood function. Two deep activity and the right to home teaching. So yeah, over the years the Mormon Church did not do what it needed, according to James Boley.

John Dehlin [00:39:57] David writes something really sobering. David Martin writes, four boys my age in my ward died by suicide because of what happened to us. So that's just tragic. And again, that's just one word, you know, one. One of our listeners.

John Dehlin [00:40:17] Yeah, so, so go ahead, Carah, if you want to and kind of browse through some of those comments and you can, you can highlight any ones that are relevant. But the part of, I think part of something that's notable here is when you think about $250 million, you might think, well, that's a lot of money.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] It depends because if you just take, if you just assume. Let me pull up my calculator. If you just assume that, you know, let's just say that it's like if

Carah Burrell [00:40:53] I make $50,000 a year, it's like a sixty dollar ticket that I went to like dinner. That's how much? Yeah, that's the percentage. It. Is that what you're trying to figure out?

John Dehlin [00:41:02] Well, let's say, let's just say that 40,000 boys, young Mormon boys and young men were sexually abused. Okay, so that's, that's double the 20% of the hundred thousand that we're estimating. So let's just say 40,000. Divide that by 250 million. Right, that's. Wait, no, no, no, that would be. Let me do it a different way. 250.

Carah Burrell [00:41:29] You can't do this in your head.

John Dehlin [00:41:30] Million. Right. Divided by. Let's just say 50,000. 50,000 Mormon boys. That's $5,000 per month. Nice work. Yeah. So if it's. So that's just the back of the envelope thing. If we take that $250 million with the 50,000 boys, at least Mormon boys that were sexually abused, that's $5,000 per boy. Now if you, let's just say your son was sexually abused by the Mormon Church when the Mormon Church was Clearly, the number one national leader within the Boy Scouts and they offered you and your family $5,000 in terms of therapy, reparation, healing, compensation for neglect, systemic abuse and cover up, how would you feel about $5,000?

Carah Burrell [00:42:16] Not good. Not good at all.

John Dehlin [00:42:18] It's not a lot.

Carah Burrell [00:42:18] And should we mention that it's 250 million from the LDS Church, but also going into a pool that's from their insurers as well. So each victim, it's really up in the air how much they're going to get at this point because things are still in negotiation. Right. So we don't really know. We know how much the Church is willing to give and not willing to give, but you know what I mean, how much the Church is required to pay, but in terms of how much will actually come out from all of the class action lawsuits and all of the collective insurers and lawyers, what the actual victims are getting, it's, it's, you can have your calculator all you want, but I don't think we'll know that number for a long time, how much they'll actually get in a settlement. Right?

John Dehlin [00:42:58] Yeah, yeah. I mean if you, if one of our listeners wants to divide a billion dollars by 80,000 victims, I think that's a number we should also calculate. So listeners, one of you guys do that right now, divide a billion by, by 80,000 victims. And that's just the people that have come out so far. Anyway, the other dimension about this is how much money the Mormon Church actually has. And we all know, thanks to David Nielsen, the Ensign Peak whistleblower, and the financial disclosures that the Mormon Church was forced to admit, we now know that the Mormon Church has well over 150, as you called

John Dehlin [00:43:37] me on billion dollars just sitting in cash in stock and financial reserves right now, and I'm not mispronouncing it like I did earlier, $150 billion in just an investments and they own between 2 and 4% of the state of Florida of the publicly available land, not to mention real estate all around the world. So does the Church have enough money

Carah Burrell [00:44:00] Yes, I would say.

John Dehlin [00:44:01] Do they have, could they Afford More than 250 million?

Carah Burrell [00:44:04] Yeah, but the more money that comes out on that headline because they know that it's going to go in a headline, it's going to get spread around the world, that it's just going to make it look like more of more victims. They want to keep that number as small as humanly possible.

John Dehlin [00:44:19] Yeah, we have a couple listeners that were great. We're grateful that went ahead and did the math for us. Let's give shout outs to them. They calculated. So basically a billion dollars divided by 80,000 victims is what, Carah?

Carah Burrell [00:44:32] 12, 500 per victim.

John Dehlin [00:44:35] And that's not counting future victims. So thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, T.K. thanks, Akeem, all those who did that math. We have lots of people. We have good, we don't. We have good listeners and viewers.

Carah Burrell [00:44:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:47] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:44:48] Thanks, guys.

John Dehlin [00:44:48] Thanks so much for helping out with that. Okay, so actually we have, let me just, if you'll scroll down over here just for a second. We actually have some, you know, just some quotes about the reactions to the settlement because it's, it kind of doesn't matter what Karen. I think it matters kind of what the victims think. And so in one of the articles it reads, representatives of the official victims committee described the proposed settlements as, what's the quote?

Criticism of the Settlement's Fairness

Carah Burrell [00:45:15] Grossly unfair.

John Dehlin [00:45:17] Grossly unfair. That's from the Associated Press quote. The only winners in this latest proposal are the Boy Scouts, their local councils, the Mormon Church and the Hartford Insurance Company, says Michael Pfau, an attorney who represents whose firm represents more than 1,000 abuse claimants in the bankruptcy. He said in a prepared statement. He goes on to write, the Boy Scouts are offering abuse survivors a fraction of what their cases are worth and the assets available to pay them. Pfau added, the Mormon Church is reported to have, as we just said, roughly over, I'm going to say $150 billion in assets, but is offering to pay a paltry.

John Dehlin [00:45:57] So that's what the attorneys feel. Paltry. 250 million to compensate. He said. The thousands, I'm going to say tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of abuse survivors who were abused in Mormon Boy Scout troops by Mormon Boy Scout leaders.

John Dehlin [00:46:13] Paltry. Like I, you know, there are probably listeners who have feelings about lawyers that are like always trying to gouge corporations and, you know, whether, whether these class action lawsuits are fair or not. Would you have thoughts about that?

Carah Burrell [00:46:28] Oh, about what lawyers are doing? Yeah. I mean, that is a bad faith interpretation, as bad as it gets. And of course, it's Difficult without a trial for every single person to go through the details and drum up all of this history. So just to have a straight up like class action lawsuit across the board, a settlement for these people I think is the most, I think moral and civil and just like best way to accomplish the most good for the most people. And if lawyers who went to school and passed the bar happen to also be able to pay their mortgage because that they represent victims, I'm so sorry, but that's what lawyers need to do. They need to get these people justice.

John Dehlin [00:47:13] Yeah. And it's, you know what we ought to do? Let's, let's just invite if there are any attorneys who are part of this case, if any of you know, any of the attorneys that are part of this case, we would love to have you on Mormon stories and interview some of the attorneys. I was just going to say this is the way the justice system is set up in the United States right now. We all probably hate the litigiousness of modern society, but how else are corporations and the Mormon Church is a corporation. How else are corporations held to justice but through class action lawsuits?

Carah Burrell [00:47:42] I can't think of a, it's a, it's not perfect, but I can't. Would somebody like to suggest a better way?

John Dehlin [00:47:47] Yeah. And why shouldn't. If attorneys are going to do the work and oftentimes these attorneys do the work at their own cost and the only way they receive compensation is if they actually win.

Carah Burrell [00:47:58] Right.

John Dehlin [00:47:59] So contingency fees and class action lawsuits are the way American justice happens. So even if you don't like that, this is the way America runs right now. And, and how else literally what else will the Mormon Church listen to? They won't listen to victims. They won't listen to victims families, they don't even care about the media. They'll, they'll, but, but if people are suing the Mormon Church, bad PR lawsuits, that's really the only way to get the church to pay attention.

Carah Burrell [00:48:25] Right. And I think the just along the lines of systemic abuse problems. When the numbers add up this much, I think we should always err on the side of believing victims and trying to get them the settlements that they deserve for a lifetime that was taken from them, either them or you know, just the treatment that they're going to have to go through through the rest of their life. So it's a really bad faith interpretation to look at this as like a money grab that I think when people prioritize the good name of the church over believing victims, then we have a screwed up system.

John Dehlin [00:48:59] Yeah, really quick shout out to Mark Fuentes. He we've had a few of you donate to this program through Super Chats. Mark, My, my compensation at the Open Stories foundation is fixed. We're, we're good but we, we are paying Carah and other Gerardo to help with thumbnails and and you know cinematography Brooklyn to do our editing. Carah to be co host. We really appreciate, we live by your donations and your support and so if you appreciate Carah, if you appreciate this programming, if you want to see us other cover other news topics, you know we appreciate that support. So thanks to everyone who, who donates through Super Chat or through the Facebook feature of Stars as well.

John Dehlin [00:49:42] So anyway, yeah they're calling it paltry and, and so yeah we want to just use this time again to say if you've been abused as a boy scout within the Mormon Church and you want to tell your story, we want to find a way to help you tell your story on Mormon stories even. It's just recording a few minute video clip that we can seem together. If you know any of the attorneys also we would love to include them. Now let's just talk really quickly about the church's apology. So we did read that the church and again I think it's our buddy. Is it Hawkins? What's his name? Michael Hawkins. Eric Hawkins.

The Church's Apology and Public Response

Carah Burrell [00:50:22] Eric Hawkins.

John Dehlin [00:50:23] So our buddy Eric Hawkins did, did release an apology and I think we

Carah Burrell [00:50:29] should read it on behalf of Jesus Christ. Oh no. The Church of Jesus Christ. Okay, go on.

John Dehlin [00:50:34] Yeah, and you know, and by the way it's. It's worth noting that Dallin jokes is on record as saying that the Mormon Church will neither seek nor ever give an apology. So the Mormon Church, it's obviously acknowledging guilt by will by being willing to pay $250 million, but it is not willing to issue any apology to the victims. Thoughts on that?

Carah Burrell [00:51:01] No, I only have jokes and this is too serious. Yeah, sorry.

John Dehlin [00:51:05] Yeah, yeah, it is really serious and so I want to just take a second to find. Do you know where the apologies are?

Carah Burrell [00:51:14] It was actually where I already had.

John Dehlin [00:51:17] Okay, okay, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Carah Burrell [00:51:18] You were scrolling up and down like a madman looking there. It's right there. Apology.

John Dehlin [00:51:24] Okay, so this. Here it is.

Carah Burrell [00:51:26] Let me read it.

John Dehlin [00:51:27] You want to read it? This is the apology. Non apology from the Mormon Church.

Carah Burrell [00:51:30] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints condemns abuse of any kind. We express our love and concern for those who have experienced abuse through scouting and any other or any other circumstances. Hey, abuse happens if that happened to you. Sorry about that. That, that was a thing you encountered?

John Dehlin [00:51:47] No, it's kind of like the mistakes were made, but not by me. Right.

Carah Burrell [00:51:51] Mistakes were made, but not by me.

John Dehlin [00:51:53] Yeah, it's, it's very, it's condemning abuse, which is. Wow, who doesn't condemn abuse? Right. And then it's basically saying we express our love and concern for those who have been abused. But, but what's it missing in your view?

Carah Burrell [00:52:09] Any kind of just acknowledgement that we done blanked up, we done put people in positions where we did not have the spirit of discernment and some incredibly beautiful children were abused under our watchful slash not watchful care.

John Dehlin [00:52:29] Yeah. Like what would be. What if you could help Eric Hawkins with an apology? What, what realistic things does the Mormon Church have to apologize for? I mean we've kind of started touching on them. What would you list?

Carah Burrell [00:52:42] Oh, first of all for not having proper screening in place and not paying attention to background checks. Background checks. Not paying attention to any kind of history in the person's past. That kind of. They sweep that under the rug. Like we move them to a different place.

John Dehlin [00:52:57] So not adequately tracking the abusers.

Carah Burrell [00:53:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:00] Right.

Carah Burrell [00:53:01] Not having a like two person, what is it called?

John Dehlin [00:53:04] Two deep leadership.

Carah Burrell [00:53:05] Leadership.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] All the years they didn't have two deep leadership.

Carah Burrell [00:53:07] Right. And I think in any instance where adult men are alone with children is. There's, it's really highly suspect and I'm sure there's plenty of other systems that can be put in place.

John Dehlin [00:53:19] And to this day the Mormon church still has one on one interviews with bishops and 12 year old girls asking them if they masturbate, asking them if they touch themselves. One on one interviews with 16 year old girls, asking them, you know, when you made out with that boy, where did he touch you? You know, under the clothes, over the clothes. Did you orgasm?

Carah Burrell [00:53:38] It just shows like their priorities, their priorities are completely skewed from what I think a normal moral person's priorities are, which is to protect the mental health and physical safety of children. But if they need to dig and get those answers, because we need to know if you've done these things, we need to keep you in the shame cycle or we need to keep you in this system where does. If you happen to be abused, we're technically not going to do anything about it. Like they, they don't have the best interest of the people as their highest priority. And that comes out time and time and time again.

Carah Burrell [00:54:10] That's why I think you and I do this job, is it's so frustrating that no matter how many times we talk about it and report on it, so many things don't change into the Church until like we're trying to push them, trying to move that needle. Right. Like there's so many small areas where they could change and not set up Mormon children and youth and women and all kinds of people for this abuse. But it just shows time and time again that's not their highest value and priority.

John Dehlin [00:54:32] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:54:32] Even though I know there's good people in the church, of course, who in their mind that's a high priority. But the way the system works, it doesn't come to fruition.

John Dehlin [00:54:38] Yeah, yeah. If I had to list the things I would want the Church to apologize for. It's for, number one, lacking the spirit of discernment that this was going to happen in the first place. You know, because we are taught that they're prophets, seers and revelators. So they should have foreseen this. You know, if there was anything the Church could receive inspiration about. It's not a logo design change. It's the fact that over 100,000 of their own boys and youth were going to be sexually abused in the Boy Scout program. So to never partner with the Church, with the Boy Scouts of America to begin with.

John Dehlin [00:55:10] But from there it's covering up the abuse. It's not punishing the abusers, it's reassigning them and not tracking them adequately so that they could continue and repeat abuse in ward and stake after ward and stake. It's all the many times they silenced the victims, pressured the victims not to speak, pressured the victims of the families not to speak, did hush, hush one on, you know, one on one quiet settlements and then the fact that the Mormon church made up 20 plus percent of the leadership. So the Mormon Church wasn't just, it wasn't just the Boy Scout again, just the Boy Scout troop leaders that were Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:55:49] It's all the leaders that the Mormon Church funneled into corporate headquarters for the Boy Scouts of America that were part of the systemic abuse that was covered up for, for decades and decades.

Carah Burrell [00:56:01] So if you get one thing from whatever this is going to take an hour to do, you get one thing. It's what John just said. It is the systemic abuse that the Church has funneled and covered up like that is undeniable. And if you care about Mormons like I do, that that needs to change. Whether it's part of the Boy Scout program or any other program the Church does, it is a systemic abuse problem.

John Dehlin [00:56:22] Yeah. And a Final thing that I would love to see the church apologize for is for never apologizing. Like if we know at minimum 20,000 Mormon boys and youth have been sexually abused within the Mormon Church. That's a lot. Is that a lot? Like, that's crazy. But the church has never once publicly apologized to those victims, nor even in a general conference said, hey, we've got a sexual abuse problem in the church, in Boy Scouts, we need to fix it. We've never, you know, all the. Carah, think about this. Are you ready?

Carah Burrell [00:56:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:56] How many times have we heard in general conference that the gays that that same sex marriage is a threat to the family and that we need to fight same sex marriage and that we need to be opposed to non traditional marriage? Just give me an estimate. How many times have we heard that in church, in church magazines, in conference talks and BYU talks?

Carah Burrell [00:57:15] It's, it's always part of the rotation, I mean topics.

John Dehlin [00:57:19] So it's there hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of public pronouncements saying that gays are going to destroy society, that, that the family's under attack. Carah, how many times have we heard the Mormon Church ever say in general conference in, in Ensign articles in public news statements that, that there is a rampant problem with sexual abuse of Boy Scouts within the church and we need to stop this rampant sexual abuse of boys and young men from happening. Happening. How many times have you heard that conference talk?

Carah Burrell [00:57:51] Let me get out my calculator and add 0 plus 0 and sign articles.

John Dehlin [00:57:56] Yeah, and I mean we're being kind of, we're being a little bit flippant about it, but this is like super

Carah Burrell [00:58:02] heavy because it's so frustrating. It's so, it's causes so much damage. It is literally one of the number one causes of what would you call it, like suicidal ideation. We've had people in the comments already talking about that they've been abused and that they know people who have ended their lives because of this type of abuse. This is causing people's lives to crumble and end. And this is not just like drumming up bad press for the LDS Church. It's because, it's because the LDS Church has created its own bad infrastructure to not take care of these problems that need to be addressed before another single child in its care gets harmed. It's, it's, it's an out of control issue. And to say anything less than that is to do a huge disservice.

John Dehlin [00:58:46] Yeah. Yeah. Sam, one of our listeners on YouTube writes, In my experience, it wasn't until I became a scout leader myself that they finally started instituting background checks to screen adult leaders. This should have been the case from the very beginning. Again, Mormon church leaders trust their leaders. What is a prophet good for? A prophet seer to see ahead, a revelator. What are these leaders good for? Why is it that the church was on the tail end of two Deep leadership and making the environment safe for these boys and youth versus being on the front end? What good is it to have a prophet seer and revelator?

John Dehlin [00:59:20] And I'm just going to also just close this point we were trying to make. And you can, you can look for any other comments or questions that viewers have, but what is a church of. You know, we all were taught by the Mormon Church the steps for repentance. You know, it's admit fault.

Carah Burrell [00:59:37] Yeah, go ahead, admit fault. You know, admit that you did something wrong.

John Dehlin [00:59:41] Seek restitution.

Carah Burrell [00:59:42] Seek restitution.

John Dehlin [00:59:43] Make it right.

Carah Burrell [00:59:44] Make it right. And just repeat everything else that John said and apologize. I can't remember. Yeah, Isn't it apologize? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:50] I mean, was that not part of what you were taught? Is it part of repentance?

Carah Burrell [00:59:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:53] Confess and forsake the sin and then make it right and then never do it again. The church did not confess this sin. They have not forsaken it, and they did not make it right when they had many, many ample opportunities to do it. And now they think, you know, $250 million is going to be viewed by members is like, whoa, the church really did its part. That's like six minutes of compound interest on $150 billion. Like that's a sneeze. $250 million, believe it or not, is like a burp.

Carah Burrell [01:00:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:25] In terms of the church's overall wealth.

Carah Burrell [01:00:27] Yeah. A one minute day and they're like compound interest. You're right.

John Dehlin [01:00:31] Yeah. Yeah. So.

Carah Burrell [01:00:34] And speaking of, when they were doing their kind of little apology, I highlighted it on the screen, but I didn't get to read it. That, that. I think Eric Hawkins said that this is a contribution to the victim. Somebody mentioned. I don't know if you read that in the articles.

John Dehlin [01:00:49] Yeah. And I'm sure that's. What do you think about that?

Carah Burrell [01:00:51] That like, really makes it look like it's like a donation. Like they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, that they weren't like taken to court and like actually had to be forced to pay this, like, it contribution Seems like kind of soft language.

John Dehlin [01:01:04] Yeah. It's kind of legalese because the church doesn't want to admit responsibility. So it's not compensation. It's just a donation. It's a contribution. Like, I'm sure that's where that word came from, you know, and by the way, the rampant sexual abuse within Mormonism far exceeds just what's happened in the Boy Scouts. And Michael Benjamin on YouTube writes John Dehlin, I would love to share a local case here in Casson, Minnesota where the LDS Church is actively involved in defending a registered sex offender from Utah who was Elders quorum president and abused a young. And abused a young man again.

Carah Burrell [01:01:46] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:01:46] You know, we know about the k. The COVID up case in, in West Virginia. The Mormon Church has a super long history of again, protecting abusers at the expense of victims all throughout the world paying hush money to silence them. And this is a much, much bigger problem than just the Boy Scouts. Okay, so Carah, one of the things that we did in preparation is you spent some time actually reading responses from faithful members. So I think we should close today with, with kind of reading a few of those. You want to do that?

Faithful Member Perspectives on the Abuse Case

Carah Burrell [01:02:22] All right, so I went and scoured the web looking for what, what are the Mormons saying is the name of this segment? So I'm, I try to get inside their head. I'm trying to think. When you see an article like this and you read about what the church of settlement is, what is the response? And so I think I have three, three of them. I'm going to role play as the act of Mormon. I have four of them actually. And John, you're going to give your best response. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:02:48] Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:02:49] So hey, the church is getting sued by a bunch of opportunists and the next time somebody questions why the church hoards $100 billion, it's for times like this. Yeah, because they need all of the money and they need people to pay tithing for when they have to do these settlements.

John Dehlin [01:03:03] Ah, okay. Believing Mormon Carah. So that's so. So prophet seers and revelators didn't use their prophecy ship and searship and revelating powers to prevent the sexual abuse of children. They just skipped right forward to using their prophet seer revelator powers to amass hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth to after the fact that pay off a small percentage of the victims with small pieces of money. And that's actually a feature, not a bug because this shows just how the prophet sees. And revelators were inspired of God.

Carah Burrell [01:03:44] Exactly. They are inspired by God.

John Dehlin [01:03:46] So God cares more about. They have stockpiling money to pay victims than he does to actually prevent the abuse itself from happening. Is that kind of what this person's arguing?

Carah Burrell [01:03:56] Yeah, yeah. Flawless logic. I can't even.

John Dehlin [01:04:00] Number two, this is faithful Mormon.

Carah Burrell [01:04:03] This is faithful Mormon Carah saying the Boy Scouts in the church are separate entities. So the abuse happened with the Boy Scouts. Why are you talking about the church?

John Dehlin [01:04:11] Yeah, yeah. So again, I, I would love an investigative reporter to go back and look at the. I am sure that Mormons sat and in fact I, I am certain that Mormons have always sat on the board of directors of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of Association. So I guarantee you, you look at past BSA boards, there's always like high level Mormons serving on the boards. And then if you look at executive leadership within the Boy Scouts of America, you will find Mormons overrepresented there. And again, you, you, you know, we represented 20% of the boy Scouts of America. We were the single largest participant in the United States for the Boy Scouts of America. We were, we were the Boy Scouts of America.

Carah Burrell [01:04:57] But if the abuse happens, it was, they're wearing their Boy Scouts gear, they're on Boy Scouts camp outs. They're not in an LDS church building. It's under the Boy Scouts umbrella. It's their brand. It's not our, it's not our church.

John Dehlin [01:05:10] So again, that's like saying a Catholic, it's a Catholic priest's fault if he abuses a kid. What that fails to take into consideration is the decades of systemic abuse institutionally where both the Catholic Church in the spotlight case and the Mormon Church in, in the Boy Scouts of Americase they knew about the abuses. They did not protect the victims. They covered up the abuses. They, they, they let offenders reabuse, they didn't punish the, the perpetrators and they silenced the victims with hush money or with pressure. So there is a systemic problem at the highest levels of the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America and

John Dehlin [01:05:51] within the highest levels of the leadership of the Mormon Church and within Curtin McConkie, we all know that the Mormon Church, when they set up an abuse hotline, it didn't go to, you know, a hotline for sexual abuse victims, for mental health support services. Where directly did the Mormon churches hotline for abuse victims given to bishops? Carah, where did that hotline actually ring into?

Carah Burrell [01:06:13] Oh, it actually is the same place I got my nose from. It's a joke. I have. I got my nose from Curtin McConkey. That's why it's so crooked.

John Dehlin [01:06:22] Yeah, I mean we're, we're Kind of making jokes, and it's so that we don't cry. And that's exactly right. The, the Mormon Church for decades gave a 1-800-number hotline to two bishops so that when an abuse victim came out, the bishop calls Curt McConkey to protect the church, not to provide aid and support to the victims.

Carah Burrell [01:06:45] And can I, as a mother, can I just. You're a father, but can I just. If there's a Mormon listening to this, I just want you to think about an organization. No matter how much spiritual edification you get from them, you are putting your children in a scenario where they link their phone to their. To their lawyer's offices. That that is the higher priority when push comes to shove than protecting your very children. That you are putting them in a system where that is just almost like common knowledge now that that's what they care about, that's what their priority is. So that's what's difficult for me, is how much I love Mormons and how much I do care about people wanting to make change within the system, while at the same time, if I'm a mom, I can't in good conscience take my kids into an LDS Church building and hand them over to their Sunday school teachers or let them go on like, you know, camping trips or something when they're teenagers, because I don't know that the church actually has my children's best interests at heart.

Carah Burrell [01:07:41] I don't know that for sure. And I'm not going to take that risk. So that's, that's my main point that I want to get across. Should I read one more?

John Dehlin [01:07:47] Yeah, yeah, really quickly. Van Medos writes, if you want to interview me, I was abused by the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America and the LDS Church for six years. And I have shovels full of dirt. So, yes, if any of you were victims want to share your story? We won't be able to share everyone's story, but we will be able to create little video snippets of people's stories and then sew them together. Please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com and we would love to have you as part of the program, Carah. Let's go to Faithful Mormon quote number four.

Defending Institutions Despite Systemic Failures

Carah Burrell [01:08:21] Okay, so what you're missing here, John de Lynn, is that the Boy Scouts of America and the Eldest church have excellent teachings and they help people do lots of great things. And yeah, some bad offensive happened, but there are evil, conniving people who work their way into, you know, this organization. Yeah, there's an ugly side but there's a really good upside and it's not worth smearing the church and smearing the Boy Scouts of America just because some bad people took advantage of some children. What you're realizing, what you're not realizing is there's a lot of good that's being done and good on the church for paying the settlement.

John Dehlin [01:08:58] So this is basically the. The few, you know, one bad apple argument. You're basically saying that one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch. That just because a few victims have been abused, the overwhelming good of the Boy Scouts of America swamps any measly selfish kind of victims that. That have come out. Is that what you're saying?

Carah Burrell [01:09:21] Basically, yeah. Yeah. And like, there's so much good to be done. Hey, like, there's bad apples in every organization. Why is this any different? The church is actually doing the right thing.

John Dehlin [01:09:31] Yeah. Yeah. So. So again, this is decades of abuse. These are prophet seers and revelators that we expect to see ahead and protect us. They, they have been protecting perpetrators for decades. They've been silencing victims. This is systemic. And it's not just a few dozen people. We're talking about probably anywhere between 20 and 100,000 Mormon boys and youth over the past several decades. Over the past century. I didn't even mention this. My father was sexually abused during his time as a Mormon Boy Scout when he was growing up.

Carah Burrell [01:10:07] Oh, my God.

John Dehlin [01:10:08] What year about this would have been in the 50s. Wow. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:10:12] As a Mormon Boy Scout.

John Dehlin [01:10:13] As a Mormon Boy Scout in Salt Lake City. So this goes back into the 40s and 50s. It's not just a few bad apples. When we start talking about tens of thousands over multiple decades and you know that the Church has known about these things and hasn't fixed the problem, didn't come clean about it, didn't notify the membership broadly, didn't do a zero tolerance policy for it, and frankly didn't for decades. Didn't pub. Didn't punish the thousands and thousands of perpetrators, but instead just protected them, silenced the issues and let them reoffend. In other words, and stakes. This is systemic. It's just like the Catholic Spotlight, I think.

Mandatory Reporting and Calls for Reform

Carah Burrell [01:10:52] All right, and last one is we kind of touched on this, so you can make this one brief. But I've heard some people in the comment sections on KSL and other places saying that this settlement is not about justice for the abused, per presumably the offending scout leaders that have been charged and will serve time in prison. This lawsuit is about getting money from the deepest pockets that these victims can find.

John Dehlin [01:11:17] I mean, again, people do that. People pick a lawsuit or a class action lawsuit. They pick the wealthiest organization they can find and sue it. But, but, but that's, I can't see that that's what's going on here. What's going on here is why would the church give $250 million?

John Dehlin [01:11:34] It's because the church knows it's guilty. And by the way, this didn't say Carabarrell faithful cara barrel. This didn't say the Catholic Church gives 250 million and the Presbyterian church and the Methodist Church gives 200 million. And you know, the orthodox Jews give, you know, 100 million. There's only one church that is a part of this major announcement. It's our church. And there's a reason why that is. It's because we became synonymous. We took over the Boy Scouts in effect, and we became synonymous with them for decades. And that's why the church is announcing the only church in affiliation with this settlement. And such a massive amount, a quarter of a billion dollars, which is paltry when given the large number of victims.

John Dehlin [01:12:19] But it's still a massive acknowledgment. People are going to say the Mormon Church did admit guilt here. I think $250 million is a pretty big admission of guilt, right? Yeah. So faithful member, this is not just money grubbers trying to take advantage of a rich organization. This is the church acting egregiously irresponsible for decades.

Carah Burrell [01:12:39] Yeah, yeah, right on.

John Dehlin [01:12:41] All right, so what else, Carah, for today? Did we cover it? Is there more? Are there any comments?

Carah Burrell [01:12:47] The only last comment is I will give credit where credit sued that I think that the Boy Scouts before that they declared bankruptcy. I think that they were moving in good directions with trying to include trying more inclusivity. I think they were doing a lot more screenings in the last few years and background checks while the Mormon Church was, they were going on separate paths in the last few years since 2018. And the Mormon Church has not even made the same strides that the Boy Scouts have made in terms of trying to protect children, trying to do background checks and screening. And that is a really, it's a really sad loss that the Boy Scouts that even with all of the things that we just mentioned throughout the, the troops that were associated with the Mormon Church and otherwise, that they were making strides in the right direction while the Mormon Church has still not made hardly any, any strong implements and changes.

Carah Burrell [01:13:39] So I feel like it's so much more could be done and I hope that us talking about it and your comments and everybody's concerns and getting maybe another couple interviews talking about people who maybe have been abused in the scouting program will move the needle a little bit and that the Mormon Church will hopefully realize that some better changes need to be made so these types of egregious abuse of children never happens again.

John Dehlin [01:14:06] Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe, maybe when we do these episodes where we kind of hit the church pretty hard for its mistakes, we can always end with a bit of a constructive bit where we sort of say what we think the church should do.

John Dehlin [01:14:20] You know, Gerardo makes the comment that, that, you know, Oaks is on record as saying that the church only gives out about $44 million a year in welfare. I think that's a great point, Gerardo. Let me just say what I would like to see the church do and then you can, you can add that. I would like to see the Mormon Church, number one, apologize to follow Jesus's example and follow its own example of what it teaches us. Repentance is. I would like to see the church apologize to its victims and to the family members of the victims and to the people who died and to all the people whose lives were wrecked by these pedophiles.

John Dehlin [01:14:55] I would like to see the church pay more money than the 250 million that's already out there. I would like to see the church go to, on general conference and in an ensign article, let put the whole church membership on notice that it is sorry for what it's done and that it takes responsibility for what it's done.

John Dehlin [01:15:15] And then I would see. I like to see the church kind of move forward in positive ways where not just for, you know, youth programs, but for adults as well. The church implements background checks on leaders, zero tolerance policies for abuse talks. How about this, Carah? How about the Mormon Church mentions the. The pedophilia and sexual abuse more than it mentions its war on LGBTQ members and same sex marriage.

Carah Burrell [01:15:41] Is that a reasonable. Yeah, yeah, I'm on board with that. That every single time they're ready to like, say that the gays are coming for our kids, we'll say, hey, we have some work we need to get to.

John Dehlin [01:15:51] How about we clean our own here?

Carah Burrell [01:15:53] Yeah, let's clean our own house. Let's talk about consent and purity culture and breaking down a lot of the things that set people up for abuse in general and people to become abusers. So there's so many good topics that could cover within the church. And the war on the families is a kind of A giant distraction, in my opinion.

John Dehlin [01:16:13] There's a great comment from Bizarro Ward. He writes youth leaders should be mandatory reporters. And I'm gonna actually up that.

Carah Burrell [01:16:22] So it's really good. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:23] So in Utah, because Utah state legislature is controlled by Mormons, like 80% Mormons in the state legislature, they've made it in Utah law that bishops and church leaders are not mandatory reporters. So if, if a 12 year old kid goes, or a 9 year old kid goes to a bishop and says I was sexually abused, you know, if I'm a psychologist, I have to report that to childhood protective Services. A Mormon bishop is not a mandatory reporter in Utah and they don't have to report. What if the. What if the Mormon church and it's 80% of the Utah legislature were to change the Utah law so that every Mormon bishop was a mandatory reporter for sexual abuse?

Carah Burrell [01:17:02] My mind is blown that that's not already a thing. Like, it's. That pains me. Right? Yeah, that really pains me that people confide in their leaders and their bishops and they're not already needing to report those things.

John Dehlin [01:17:13] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:17:14] Kurt McConkey's on the line though.

John Dehlin [01:17:15] Yeah. All right. Well, Carah, I really appreciate that you could receive a text from me at whatever AM this morning saying let's do this episode and that you would just come in and make this happen.

Closing Thoughts and Thrive Day Wrap-Up

Carah Burrell [01:17:26] Yeah. This is. I care about a lot of things to do with Mormonism. And the number one thing that's always on my heart is making the people within the church have a better experience because they have informed consent, because they know that their children are going to be cared for well. And we can't, I can't do that unless we talk about these really hard issues. And I hope that I also brought a little bit of levity and like a little bit of light heartedness because this is such a tough topic. I hope I wasn't being disrespectful, but trust me, this is really where my heart is, is trying to get people who have been in a.

Carah Burrell [01:17:58] Whether it's the Mormon Church, Catholic Church, any system that is trying to serve people, but also benefits when the people who are abused within the system stay silent, making sure the victims are heard, making sure that these settlements are being paid and that preventative measures are being put into place so nobody even needs a settlement ever again. Because the system is a healthy place to raise children in.

John Dehlin [01:18:19] I love it. So this bumper.

Carah Burrell [01:18:22] Bam.

John Dehlin [01:18:22] And yeah, Carah, I think we should just. Also, just a couple final notes. We want to. To cover these sort of Topics more. We want to cover current events, maybe even weekly on Mormon Stories podcast. And we want to know, do you like this feedback? Do you like this format? Can we get your feedback? Would you guys like a panel where we bring on people like John Larsen, Natasha Helfer, Zelf, you know, Zelf on the shelf.

Carah Burrell [01:18:46] You want me to bring on my marshmallow gun? Do you want to see it? Do you want me to pull it out from my grandma's attic?

John Dehlin [01:18:51] Yes, the answer to that is yes. But. But we want your feedback. So if you like this program, please let us know in your comments or email us if you like kind of Mormon, Mormon news coverage. If you have suggestions on how we can make it better.

Carah Burrell [01:19:06] James wants me to keep up with the Curt McConkey knows content.

John Dehlin [01:19:09] Okay. Lots of jokes and levity from James if you. Yeah. So where was I?

Carah Burrell [01:19:17] Do you want to see more of this content? Are you liking it? What else can we do? Because we want to bring as many things that are in the news that relate to Mormonism and making change. What can we do in a panel format? A weekly daily. What kind of content are you looking for? Please email us@mormonstories.org or leave a comment in this YouTube video or in Facebook box or on Facebook.

John Dehlin [01:19:39] Yeah, and also we really do rely on your financial support. So if you're ever able to donate, click the little dollar sign in YouTube and donate to this program that helps us support Carah and the great work she does and Gerardo and Brooklyn and others.

John Dehlin [01:19:53] You could always go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor. That's the preferred way so that we can know each month what our expenses can be. We're a nonprofit. It's all tax deductible in the US and we're transparent in our finances. So please support us in all the ways you can, especially through feedback. And then again, I just want to end the way we began. We have an amazing.

John Dehlin [01:20:17] We have an amazing event coming up. If you go to Thrive beyond religion, go to events in the events calendar. I just want to plug again. Thrive Thrive Day 2021 11-14-10am we are going to have Sarah Edmondson from a little bit culty podcast.

John Dehlin [01:20:36] She she was in the Vow, the HBO series the Vow about the Nexium cult. Her and her husband are going to be coming to Thrive20Thrive Day 2021. Also Lance in the Salt Palace. Lance Allred, former NBA basketball player, played with LeBron James for the Cleveland Cavaliers 4 million view Ted Talk on what is your polygamy first? Legally deaf NBA basketball player Lance Allred's going to be there. I'm going to be there, Carah, you're gonna be there.

Carah Burrell [01:21:02] I fear I may have Girl boss too close to the sun, because I have agreed to find, I think, 10 TikTok stars and put them in some type of, like, comedy TikTok panel. Something fun. We're gonna do something great at Thrive Day. I just heard about it five minutes before we went to air, but I'm already excited to get to work, so let's wrap this up.

John Dehlin [01:21:21] So. Yes. Yes. So if you have a book that you sell, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a TikToker, we want to help you At Thrive Day 2021 connect with your audience. So all you have to do right now, go to thrivebeyondreligion.com events, find Thrive Day 2021. It's only $25 per person to register. You can register right now. And most importantly, Thrive Day is nonprofit. None of us are profiting off of this event. We're paying our speakers. Other than that, it's probably going to operate at a loss because the Salt palace is super expensive to book. But we're doing it because we want to support healing, growth.

John Dehlin [01:22:01] Oh, I forgot to mention, Jesse Funk is doing a youth track called Especially for Truth during Thrive Days. So parallel to the adults being in one room, Jesse Funk is going to have youth in a different room having cool content, healing and growth for post Mormon teens and youth. And so youth are welcome to Thrive Day as well. And Jesse Funk is amazing, and she's a part of that.

Carah Burrell [01:22:26] I am so happy that Jesse's doing that. Trust me, you're. Whoever Jesse Funk does, you're gonna want to follow her to the ends of the earth. She makes some great events. I've already spoken it to John. Spoken it to. So far, she's already launched this especially for Truth events, and they're amazing. Amazing. So she's going to be doing a youth portion during the Thrive event. So if you go to the. The Thrive website and if you have kids between the ages of, we're thinking we're like 12, 12 and 18 or 19 is probably the limit that they can go and they can attend Thrive Day along with you as an adult. So that was an amazing idea. I'm so glad that Jesse's gonna do that.

John Dehlin [01:23:01] Yeah. So Thrive Day 2021, November 14, 10am $25 a person. Go to Thrive Beyond Religion and we have a fun comment. So. So Bert says, Karen, John, please feel to be a bit flippant. Getting over some of the hardest moments in my life was only possible because I didn't take it too seriously.

Carah Burrell [01:23:21] Same, same, same, same.

John Dehlin [01:23:23] You're the professional. Semi professional.

Carah Burrell [01:23:25] And guess what we're going to be doing this afternoon? Do you want to announce what we're doing?

John Dehlin [01:23:28] Oh, yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:23:28] With Natasha.

John Dehlin [01:23:29] Yeah. Yeah. So check back at. At 2:00'. Clock. That's actually in just 30 minutes, we're gonna have Natasha helfer on Mormon Stories, talking about refresh your browser healing from

Carah Burrell [01:23:39] 500 times until it hits because you're not going to want to miss a second of this.

John Dehlin [01:23:42] So if you are racked over guilt and torment from sexual shame within Mormonism, Natasha is gonna.

Carah Burrell [01:23:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:48] Help help you find healing and growth.

Carah Burrell [01:23:49] So excited.

John Dehlin [01:23:50] That's part of the gift of the Mormon faith crisis.

Carah Burrell [01:23:52] I'm gonna deconstruct sexual shame with you guys on camera live. This will be intense. But yeah, it helps that I, I don't take anything too, too seriously. Except for this.

John Dehlin [01:24:03] All right, Care Burrell, thanks for joining us. You're awesome. Thanks to everyone that makes this possible. Thanks to our viewers. Please spread the word. And again, if you were abused as a boy scout within the Mormon church or if you know about instances in your ward or stake and you want to share a brief video, we would love to put a compilation together to tell your stories, maybe even interview on Mormon stories. And if you know any of the attorneys who are involved in these class action lawsuits, we would love to interview one or two of them as well.

Carah Burrell [01:24:32] Well, yeah. Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:24:34] All right, thanks everybody. We love you guys. Stay tuned soon for another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

Carah Burrell [01:24:39] And I just wanted to add, make sure that you're going to tune into Natasha's and we'll be answering live comments because it's going to be a live broadcast in 30 minutes.

John Dehlin [01:24:48] See you guys soon.

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